Did You Know? [archive posts from spring 2023]
We plant more than 150 varieties of tulips and 30+ varieties of daffodils.
Each of our tulip beds/rows contains 6,500 or more tulips!
We import and plant brand-new tulip and daffodil bulbs every year. A little over 2.5 million bulbs are imported from Holland and planted in our fields each Fall for the following spring!
We start planting our tulips in early November after they arrive from Holland. Once we start planting, we plant seven days a week for an average of six straight weeks! Talk about a labor of love!
Our 2023 tulip field covers about 15 planted acres. Our daffodil field covers about five planted acres. This is the most significant number of acres we’ve ever planted for our spring season!
Tulips and daffodils only bloom for a short time. The length of our season averages about 21 days and entirely depends on the weather. A cool grey April provides us a longer season, while a warm sunny April dramatically shortens our season. We estimate that for every sunny 80-degree day, while the flowers are blooming, we lose 3 days of our season.
April 4th, 2023, will be one of the earliest starts to the spring season we’ve ever had.
Tulips and daffodils prefer 60 degrees, cool and grey. They bloom very quickly when temperatures exceed 70 degrees and sunny.
As stewards of this land, we practice crop rotation with our tulips and daffodils. Our tulips are planted in different fields each year to reduce the risk of plant diseases affecting the tulip. We could keep them in the same field every year, but that would require us to dump hundreds of gallons of chemicals in the fields for a healthy crop. We’re not big fans of using chemicals on our crops, and we employ as many organic farming methods as possible. Crop rotation means some years the fields will be a little farther of a walk, and other years, the flowers will be right up front. We promise that a little walk will always be worth the view and that the absence of any chemical production will be worth protecting the environment we all share! 🌷
We don’t own the land we farm here in Nokesville, VA. We lease about 120 of this sprawling 270-acre farm. We hope to have an opportunity soon to purchase the land we lease and eventually call the Nokesville farm our permanent home.
2023 marks our 11th year opening our tulip and sunflower fields to the public. We thank you for your support over the years! Without YOU, we wouldn’t have anyone to share our beautiful flower fields with! Thank you for being a friend of the farm.
Check back for new “Did you know?”